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Natural Gas – Weekly Recap August 12-16

August 17, 2013

The natural gas market changed direction and started to heat up this week as the price have bounced back mainly during at the middle of the week. The recent rise in prices may have stemmed by the increase in demand for natural gas in the power sector during last week; the demand for natural gas in the residential/commercial also slightly increased – the total demand slightly rose; the supply slipped. Based on the EIA natural gas storage weekly update, natural gas storage injection was 65 Bcf, which was high above the five year average injection and last year’s injections.

Here is a short review of the latest changes in natural gas market for the week ending on August 16th 2013:

Natural Gas Market – August Recap

During last week, the Nymex Henry Hub Future(short term delivery) changed direction and rallied by 4.27% and reached by Friday $3.37/mmbtu; its average daily change was 0.85%; its weekly average rate was 1.91% above last week’s average rate.

The difference between theNG future and spot prices – future minus spot – was mostly in Backwardation during last week.

Natural Gas Charts

The following charts shows the developments in Nat Gas future (NymexHenry Hub) in $/mmbtu during August 12-16.

As seen in the chart above, the natural gas price (Henry Hub future rate) bounced back during last week.

In the second chart are the dailypercent changes of theNymex Henry Hub future (short term delivery).

EIA NG Storage Weekly Update:

The underground natural gas storage (Billion Cubic Feet) rose again during last week by 2.21% or by 65 Bcf; the storage reached 3,006 billion cubic feet for all lower 48 states; the current storage is 1.5% above the 5-year average but remained 7.7% below the storage during the same week in 2012. The latest injection was still higher than the five year average and last year’s: During the same week in August 2012 the natural gas injection was only 20 Bcf, and the five year average injection to storage for the same week of August was again 42 Bcf. This week’s injection was mostly due to the Eastern consuming region, in which the injection was 51 Bcf.